On The Job Promotion - The Daily Work Log

Recently I wrote about tools to help organize and hence enhance creativity. One of the tools mentioned was Notepad - the simple text editor that comes with Windows.

This is also one of the more simple tools you can use to help your career... How you ask?

Simple - a daily work log...

I maintain a folder, on my desktop, called Notes. I keep a notes file called ToDo.txt and one called dailyworklog.txt. Actually there are a couple others but let's focus on the Daily Work Log.

One of the challenges with the daily grind of working is that we often arrive at the end of a week, month, quarter, year, and have only a vague notion of what we did the year prior. While we can go back through our planner - if we keep one - and even use emails as a potential trigger for remembering the tasks we completed, many items drop through the cracks.

That phone call from our manager that took us off-tasks for 4 hours while we fixed some emergency. A meeting that ran long and pushed our work back for a day or more. And then just the normal day to day operations we are tasked with.

Major projects are fairly simple - we rarely forget those. Unfortunately, it is very easy to lose sight of what we did during a day, let alone between performance reviews. The ability to take some time reviewing a simple text file with key pieces of information can help us prepare a document or overview of our true performance for a year.

My Daily Work Log is beyond simple. I keep notes in it in reverse date order like this:

That's it. I might make a note about a document that was created and include where it was saved or who I sent it to - or just the date sent, figuring I can always review my sent items if absolutely necessary.

Because I want to make the file easy to review, I periodically -maybe 4-5 times in a year - copy a months worth of notes into their own text file - 2008-06_dailyworklog.txt - would be all the entries for June of 2008.

Also, note: pretty easy to tell that I am a DOS throwback. My file names almost never have spaces and I use "-" and "_" to separate my file name sections - ie: dates and names.

I run Microsoft Search on my desktop and these text files are indexed and show up in searches.

Then, when you need to prepare your performance review, you can more easily determine where your time went and what you completed the past month, quarter, or year.

I'm curious though... what tools do you use, if any, to more carefully track the time you spend in a given day?

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8 Comments

Its amazigly versatile, has encryption, has a really small footprint etc etc.
Plus it's hierarchical capabilities make it really easy to organize a worklog by year\month\day, with rich text editing etc etc.

It has a very powerful search function too (everyone i introduced this tool so far has fallen in love with it)

Back to topic, i have a similar approach, tough its not nearly as through as you do, i mainly post bits of info and stuff i have to do right now and so everyday ends up as a kind of information dump where i can know what i did in general every day, what problems did i tackle, etc.

I have been keeping a written daily work log for years. As far back as I can remember. I have always kept a log book of my work. One of the first things I do in the morning is make a list of what I need to do today. Brain Dump. Of Everything. Not just job related. I keep all of this in a spiral notebook. So if you peruse my log book, you will get a glimpse of my life. What I accomplised on the job on a daily basis and all of my personal stuff. Like errands and calls I need to make, personal business I need to handle. It is all in one location. Making a daily list and then making notes on the list, like time spent on work related items, has always worked for me. It keeps me organized, focused and on track. In all aspects of my life.

Email (mine is OUTLOOK as well) is a great way to organize and re-review your dailies, I agree.

I have daily status reports that I generate and send to my boss each day through email, but I also send them back to me to save. I have referred back to them many times.

Remember what you do in a given day is a rationalization of your worth at your position. You time given as a status of work for a given day justifies why you get paid and why you are worthy of a raise too!

Respectfully,
Cathyg

Oct 20, 2009

If you like an online version, check out loggingit.com
. Online is good when you work from several places.

I appreciate the simplicity of simple .txt tracking. I have upped it slightly building on a tool I already use daily.

I use Toodledo to manage tasks (but any to-do tracker will work). When I complete a task, instead of marking it "complete" or deleting it, I simply move it to an Accomplishments folder. Then, weekly, I transfer these to a spreadsheet.

Since I have already captured the tasks, there is little effort involved in switching folders. Toodledo makes this easy online or with an app.

Not quite as simple as a text file, but, since it is building on a system I already utilize, it didn't take long to get into the routine.

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I write about career development, business, technology, online presence, music, parenting, hiking, and sometimes... coffee. I am a ...
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I write about career development, business, technology, online presence, music, parenting, hiking, and sometimes... coffee. I am a consultant, executive coach, and author... oh yeah, I am also a father, dog owner, and songwriter/performer.
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